Man the Sick Animal (VIII)

(Cont'd )

To Fromm, "sadistic and masochistic traits" are common and are "probably to be found in everybody." (FOF 140) but we can consider "only certain individuals and social groups as typically sad-masochistic" (FOF 149). A milder form of sado-masochistic form of dependency is "so general in our cultures  that only in exceptional cases does it seem to be lacking." (FOF 149) ie. there are always persons "whose whole life is in a subtle way related to some power outside themselves. ( see Karen Horney New Ways in Psychoanalysis 1939. He says that "there is nothing they do, feel or think which is not somehow related to this power" and they "expect protection from "him", wish to be taken care of by "him", make "him" responsible for whatever may be the outcome of their own actions" (FOF 150). Often he is not even aware of his dependence or has only "a dim awareness" of such dependency but the "person" or "power" on whom he depends often remains "nebulous" and he has no "definite image" linked to such a person or power but such dependency is represented by "a certain function" viz. to protect, help and develop the individual, to be with him and never leave him alone. Fromm give such an overt or more or less inchoate person/power a functional name. "the magic helper". Often such a "magic helper" is personified or conceived of as God, a principle or a real person eg. one's parent, husband, wife or superior. The process of personification of the "magic helper" may be observed most clearly when one "falls in love". It does not matter if the object of such personification treats the party endowing him/her with the qualities of the "magic helper" the same way and that such personification of the "magic helper" is mutual. When coupled with sexual desires, the two would consider the relationship as one of "real love".

To Fromm, the development of such a relationship may even be observed and studied under experiment-like conditions in the psychoanalytic procedure in that the person being analyzed may form a deep attachment to the psychoanalyst and he may treat his/her whole life, all actions, thoughts and feelings as "related to the analyst". (FOF 150) and the analysand would frequently ask himself/herself: would the analyst be pleased or displeased with that, agree to this or scold me for that? But it emphatically is not a "love" relationship in the normal sense. "In love relationships, the fact that one chooses this or that person as a partner serves as a proof that this particular person is loved just because he is "he"; but in the psychoanalytic situation, this illusion cannot be upheld." because "the most different kinds of persons develop the same feelings towards the most different kinds of psychoanalysts." He says, "The relationship looks like love; it is often accompanied by sexual desires; yet it is essentially a relationship to the personified magic helper, a role which obviously a psychoanalyst, like certain other persons who have some authority (physicians, ministers, teachers) is able to play satisfactorily for the person who is seeking the personified magic helper." (FOF 151)

To Fromm, such a relationship of dependency develops for exactly the same reason that a sado-masochistic symbiosis develops: the inability of the analysand to stand alone and to fully express his own individual potentialities. But "In the sado-masochistic strivings, this inability leads to a tendency to get rid of one's individual self through dependency on the magic helper" but in the milder form of dependency discussed, it only leads to "a wish for guidance and protection." However, he observes that "The intensity of the relatedness to the magic helper is in reverse proportion to the ability to express spontaneously one's own intellectual, emotional and sensuous potentialities. In other words, one hopes to get everything one expects from life, from the magic helper, instead of by one's own actions. The more this is the case, the more is the centre of life shifted from one's own person to the magic helper and his personifications." (FOF 151)  For the person needing such a magic helper, the question is then no longer how to live oneself, but how to manipulate the magic helper so as not to lose him, how to make him do what one wants, even to make him responsible for what theoretically one should be responsible for oneself. Different people may use different methods to get the "magic helper" to do what one wants e.g for some, it is some kind of "goodness" to the magic helper; for others , "suffering" and "sacrifice" for the sake of the magic helper. There is no feeling, thought or emotion which is not at least "colored" by that "need" to "manipulate" the magic helper ie. no psychic act is really spontaneous or free!  Acting so gives a measure of emotional security to its performer but it also leads to a feeling of weakness and bondage. The dependent person may unconsciously feel "enslaved" by the magic helper and may for that reason rebel against the magic helper and this desire for rebellion against the person on whom one depends for security, protection and happiness may lead to new conflicts but if so, the desire for rebellion is often "repressed" so that one would not lose the magic helper but the underlying antagonism remains and may constantly threaten to disrupt the relationship.

If the "magic helper" ( if personified by an actual person) is later perceived of as "weak" (in practice, this always happens because the expectations heaped upon the magic helper are often unrealistic and so the dependent is bound to be disappointed), then his latent resentment for the relevant "enslavement" to the magic helper will be added to such disappointment and may lead to conflicts which end in separation after which the dependent person looks for another "magic helper" and if that new relationship fails too, then the dependent person may decide that he/she is simply dogged by bad luck or that this is just "life" and get resigned to it. He/she never stops to reflect upon the cause of such repeated failures in his/her relationship to the "magic helper". As Fromm says, " What he does not recognize is that fact that his failure is not essentially the result of his not having chosen the right magic person; it is the direct result of having tried to obtain by manipulation of a magic force that which only the individual can achieve himself by his own spontaneous activity"! (FOF 152) Don't we see this around us all the time? Women who go round and round looking for the "perfect lover" and her "prince charming", getting heart-broken, stop eating, shutting themselves herself up in the house for days on end, stopping to shampoo or putting on their favorite make-up, drowning their sorrow by drinking or binge eating,  crazy shopping sprees, swearing never to find another man again, gong on an expensive holiday where they get hooked up in casual relationships etc, and the whole cycle starts again! Are people not sick? When will they learn to give up "magical thinking"? Will they never achieve any insight into what is ailing them?

Fromm praises Freud for having discovered the phenomenon of a pattern of  "life-long dependency upon an object outside of oneself" but disagrees with him for attributing its cause to the helpless child's relationship to his parents as having a sexual nature. To Fromm, as long as the child is small, it is quite natural for him to depend on his parents. However, he thinks that this dependence does not "necessarily imply a restriction of the child's own spontaneity". It is only "when the parents, acting as the agents of society, start to suppress the child's spontaneity and independence," that the "growing child feels more and more unable to stand on its own feet" and only then does he "seek for the magic helper and often makes the parents the personification of 'him'." When he grows up, he may often transfer such feelings on to say a teacher, a husband or a psychoanalyst. To Fromm, "the need for being related to such a symbol of authority is not caused by the continuation of the original sexual attraction to one of the parents but by the thwarting of the child's expansiveness and spontaneity and by the consequent anxiety." ((FOF 153). At the root of every neurosis, as well as of normal development, is for Fromm, " the struggle for freedom and independence." Fromm thinks that unfortunately, for many even so-called "well-adapted" and "normal" people, this struggle has "ended in a complete giving up of their individual selves" They may have succeeded in achieving only "freedom from" external restrictions, they have failed to achieve "freedom to" fully develop their own potentially with spontaneity in accordance with their own nature and turn themselves into a psychological "slave" to some authority or other, whether it be in the form of a person or political or some other "cause" ! In this context, the "neurotic" is "one who has not given up fighting against complete submission, but who a the same time, has remained bound to the figure of the magic helper, whatever form or shape "he" may have assumed. His neurosis is always to be understood as an attempt, essentially an unsuccessful one, to solve the conflict between that basic dependency and the quest for freedom." (FOF 154)

(To be cont'd)